The Phantom is returning to casino floors across the country.

King Features Thursday announced the comic book crimefighter, in a collaboration with Aristocrat Gaming, will be featured in a new slot game. Housed on the BaronUpright cabinet, the game will showcase dynamic graphics, sounds, bonuses, and action from the original comic telling the legend of “The Ghost Who Walks.”

“We are thrilled to once again introduce the Phantom to casino players with a game that is packed with excitement and adventure, on the latest hardware, The Baron,” Aristocrat Gaming Chief Revenue Officer Kurt Gissane said in a statement. “The Phantom has a legion of fans spanning across the world, and we’re excited for them to experience this new iteration of the brand, while also introducing unfamiliar players to comics’ first costumed hero.”

Included in The Phantom are character integrations, popular mechanics such as bonus meters and feature triggers, and chances at free games and hold & spin features. The Phantom also offers players the chance to win a grand progressive jackpot that starts at $10,000.

“Teaming up with Aristocrat Gaming on this launch let us reimagine how a brand like The Phantom comes to life in the casino space,” said Jolie Roberts, King Features Vice President of Domestic Licensing Jolie Roberts.  “With The Phantom front and center, we’re proud to celebrate the legacy of The Ghost Who Walks and give fans a bold new way to connect with the brand through visually striking gameplay.”

This year an original video game, The Phantom, from Art of Play Interactive, was released. A new comic series from Mad Cave Studios is set to debut this September. 

The slot game marks a key milestone for the brand as it gears up to introduce “fresh fan touchpoints” in celebration of The Phantom’s 90th anniversary next year.

The impact of tariffs on the U.S. economy looms overhead — 26% of back-to-school shoppers expect to cut back their spending this summer, 49% due to price inflation, per a Samsung Ads survey. And according to Deloitte, back to school spending is flat year-on-year, averaging at $570 per child.

As such, the brands looking to capture their share of back-to-school spending are operating with a paid media playbook including both safe bets and necessary gambles.

For advertisers like Staples and JanSport that means prioritizing short-form video, paid social and creator marketing activity. The latter’s “Always With You” campaign hinged on humorous short-form videos made for TikTok and YouTube, for example.

At clothing subscription service Nuuly, the season is a crucial one. Speaking ahead of the brand’s autumn/winter campaign launch in August, Kim Gallagher, executive director of marketing and customer success, told Digiday that it’s gained traction with Gen Z customers in the last eighteen months, aided by a student discount scheme first launched in 2024. Nuuly, which is owned by Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters parent Urbn, turned its first full year of operating profits this year; it now boasts well over 300,000 subscribers.

“Paid social is the big workhorse channel,” she said. As such, the brand typically prioritizes TikTok and Meta, and began using Snapchat in July to better reach younger consumers.

“We have definitely upped our spend on TikTok, but we’re only doing that via influencer. We don’t find that the Gen Z consumer wants any content to be explicitly advertising from a brand,” she said. Instead, the brand leans on creator marketing and a recently launched “Cluub” ambassador program, which offers subscribers rewards in exchange for user-generated content. “That’s been a huge source of growth for us, and it’s something that we are continuing to invest in,” she said, without providing a precise breakdown of Nuuly’s digital media budget.

Nuuly’s not alone in its focus on creator partnerships; Old Navy and Target have narrowed their attention on influencers too, while backpack brand Miles has used sampling to cut through.

For Mike DaRe, U.S. president of creative and PR agency Smarts, it’s a consequence of that channel’s maturity and its capacity to reach younger consumers. “Especially in back to school we’re seeing a lot more of the creator economy come to life, because there’s a trust that creators have earned on the micro and macro levels with consumers in these categories,” he said.

Gallagher said the brand has also begun to focus spending on streaming and CTV, with Hulu and Peacock riding high on the plan alongside Netflix and Amazon Prime. It’s also recently dipped into Reddit, an increasingly vital hub for fashion-forward web users. “I wouldn’t say we have it all figured out yet, but we’re definitely making some inroads there,” she said.

The back-to-school period is a “Super Bowl” moment for apparel brands, noted American Eagle CMO Craig Bommers, who spoke to Digiday shortly before the brand’s Sydney Sweeney-led campaign launched in July (and before the brand ran into the public, political pushback).

Bommers didn’t reveal the campaign’s budget, but had said the paid media mix behind American Eagle’s campaign prioritized YouTube, Instagram and CTV elements to reach older, college-aged, Gen Z consumers. “Because of our younger customer base, paid social will be a big component,” he said.

The latter included sponsored placements on HBO Max shows featuring Sweeney (like Euphoria) as a means of further linking the brand with the star. While American Eagle’s creator efforts have focused on building up its affiliate influencer network (launched earlier this year), it’s also devoted some paid social spending to BeReal and, like Nuuly, Snapchat. The brand used the platform’s Snap Stories format to serve Sweeney-starring ads to users inside the Stories feature, as well as offering an AR filter themed around the campaign. “The creative we specifically shot for this will feel conversational and disruptive,” he said. “We [think] it will really cut through.”

Though the platform ranks behind Meta or TikTok in most advertisers’ media plans, “Gen Z’s continued usage” of the platform makes it useful to brands like Nuuly, Gallagher noted. And Bommers said it was an important conduit for a brand like American Eagle. “We’ve always punched above our weight there because we share that same consumer base,” he said.

At media agency Tinuiti, Q2 client spending on Snap rose 51% year on year, while spending on Reddit rose 55% in the same period. VP of research Andy Taylor suggested this was a sign of broader diversification of paid social investment by retail brands, during and without the back-to-school season.

“TikTok [and] Instagram [are] certainly the biggest examples of this, but Snapchat, Twitter, threads, YouTube… we regularly see Gen Z over index as using these platforms for product discovery,” Taylor said.

Not every campaign leans so heavily on digital channels. Mid-Day Squares, a snack brand that sells its high protein chocolate bars to college-aged students in Canada and the United States year-round, utilizes a split strategy: an in-person advocacy and speaker program that sees its founders discuss entrepreneurship at universities (armed with copious samples), backed by paid social.

“We don’t focus on the product, we focus on how we build the business, showing consumers the good and the bad of what it looks like to build,” said co-founder Jake Karls. He said the creative in the brand’s paid ads, which are concentrated on Meta and TikTok, follow a similar line.

And not every Gen Z-focused brand is explicitly targeting Gen Z consumers; Deloitte’s survey found that 62% of parents say their children persuade them to spend more during the back-to-school season.

Tucker Matheson, co-founder of performance agency Markacy, pointed out that some advertisers will find direct mail a useful addition to the media mix,  particularly if they’re targeting parents – the people actually making purchases happen for the younger end of the Gen Z cohort.

“For our clients, the game plan has been to get ahead of creative production in May/June and to launch omni-channel campaigns across Meta, YouTube, TikTok and direct mail to build the top of the funnel for the short back-to-school shopping period,” he said.

But where advertisers are targeting young consumers themselves (or those in the broad Gen Z cohort that are old enough to wield a credit card), digital and social channels are the key. 40% of back-to-school shoppers plan to spend more online this year, according to a survey  by Yahoo DSP, while NRF figures suggest online shopping would account for 48% of college shoppers this year.

”We are targeting mothers on Facebook, Instagram and direct mail… and Gen Z more on YouTube and TikTok,” said Matheson.

A recent Birmingham City Schools graduate made history with his talents in video gaming.

The Birmingham City Schools hosted a ceremony for recent Huffman High School graduate Robert Miller Thursday.

Miller signed an esports scholarship with the University of Montevallo and becomes the first esports scholarship recipient in the school district’s history.

Miller was part of Huffman High’s newly formed esports team that competed in gaming on the Nintendo Switch with games like Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart.

“In our very first season of high school esports at Huffman using gaming consoles, we witnessed something truly extraordinary,” said Justin Hackett, Robert’s coach. “He earned a scholarship, an achievement I never imagined possible in our debut season. I am both astonished and immensely proud of Robert and our entire team for making history together.”

A moment of joy: News We Love

Daktronics was asked by the We’re All Mustangs Here foundation, including Pat McAfee, sports analyst and former professional football player, to design, manufacture and install new LED video displays for Plum Senior High School, McAfee’s alma mater, in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, area. The project was completed this past month and the displays were unveiled over the weekend.

The project features an outdoor video display at the football stadium, an indoor video display in the gymnasium, fixed-digit scoreboards at each venue, digital content for the displays, a Daktronics FrameWrx subscription for creating additional content and DakClassroom curriculum for student instruction in operating the displays for live events.

“This project shows that giving back can go further than you imagine,” says Kyle Sydow, Daktronics high schools market manager. “It’s not just about the student-athletes competing. Now there’s a whole new group of students getting a chance to showcase their skills on game day.”

More Than Video Technology

This project is about more than the physical LED display and scoreboard equipment – it’s about the students learning in the classroom and seeing their creations come to life on game day. To deliver this experience, Daktronics is providing a FrameWrx subscription and DakClassroom curriculum.

DakClassroom empowers teachers to provide students with the skills, experience and confidence to succeed in live game-day production during their high school careers and beyond. It is a CTE-aligned curriculum for students to learn technical terminology and to understand Daktronics LED equipment and control systems.

FrameWrx by Daktronics is a content design platform that enables students to leverage and customize professionally-designed templates to fit their school’s brand and elevate the game-day experience.

“This is about more than installing a new display for Plum Senior High School to use, it’s about giving their students the tools to learn and gain real-world experiences in the production space,” adds Sydow. “They can create graphics, play them back on the displays, learn how to operate video cameras and equipment – everything that goes into a game day or broadcast production is at their fingertips!”

MUNCIE — Ball State University is hosting its first “EA SPORTS College Football 26” tournament this fall, bringing together students, staff and alumni in a virtual competition that combines college football and gaming.

The tournament is a joint effort between Ball State Athletics, the Division of Marketing and Communications and the university’s Esports program. The event is a direct response to the massive success of the game’s recent relaunch, which saw over 700 million plays nationwide.

The single-elimination tournament is set to begin Friday, Aug. 29, with matches held on Fridays through Sept. 26. The championship game will be played Saturday, Oct. 4. All competitors will play as the Ball State Cardinals, a nod to school spirit.

Interested players (including the public) can until 11:59 p.m. on Aug. 26.
According to Jeff Mitchell, Ball State’s director of athletics, the event is a “dynamic way to engage the Ball State community” and helps connect students and faculty with alumni and fans.

The tournament will be split into two main categories: on-campus (for residence hall students, athletes, faculty and staff) and off-campus (for commuter students, alumni and fans).

Division winners will be recognized on Ball State’s social media channels. The overall champion will win an exclusive game day experience as a guest of Mitchell at a home football game. This includes on-field access during the first quarter, a $50 gift card to the official athletics retailer and other giveaways.

The tournament is being organized by Ball State Esports Director Dan Marino, who has set up the online infrastructure for the event.

To kick things off, Ball State President Geoffrey S. Mearns and Director of Athletics Jeff Mitchell faced off in the first “Geoff vs. Jeff Bowl.” The Cardinals emerged victorious over the Cardinals in a close match.

More information and sign-up details can be found on the tournament website.

Quaker Valley School District officials and staff are eager to welcome nearly 1,830 students at the start of the 2025-26 school year.

Students in kindergarten through ninth grade are expected to report Wednesday, Aug. 20, and all students will be in schools the following day.

Staffers are to report Thursday, Aug. 14.

“We’re excited to have everyone come back,” Superintendent Tammy Andreyko said. “We’re coming off of a really special year with Blue Ribbon (recognition), and we’re going to continue that strong feeling as we move forward.”

Digital backpack

The district has gone way from the traditional mailers to parents this year.

Instead, it has launched a digital backpack. They are tailor-made for each school and have information on food services, supply lists, school safety, handbooks, transportation, health services, schedules and more.

A subsection of the backpacks focuses on technology such as instructions and tips for families on how to use devices that students take home with them.